🎧 Flashback Episode: Self-Care for Play Therapists (A Revisit)

We're pulling this one back into your feed because some conversations deserve a second listen, especially when life gets busy and self-care quietly slips down the priority list again. If that's you right now, welcome back to this one.

In this episode, Kylie Ellison gets refreshingly honest about what self-care actually looks like in the life of a play therapist, recorded, fittingly, at the tail end of an exhausting Monday, with no polish and no pretending. It's less "10 tips for wellness" and more "here's what's really going on, and maybe you're going through it too."

Kylie talks through why self-care isn't a nice-to-have but a professional responsibility, especially for play therapists holding space for children's big emotions, trauma stories, and nervous systems day after day. She shares the cumulative, often invisible toll of that work, and how easily compassion fatigue and burnout can creep in when we're deeply passionate about what we do.

The conversation moves through three practical pillars:

🔹 Professional self-care: setting boundaries around caseloads, session spacing, admin time, and communication limits (including the "if it's more than two lines, it's an appointment" rule)

🔹 Emotional and nervous system care: grounding rituals before and after sessions, post-session processing, and the reminder that a dysregulated therapist can't co-regulate a child

🔹 Practical, real-life self-care: hydration, eating, workspace atmosphere, recognising early burnout signs, and building in small moments of joy and connection outside the playroom

Kylie doesn't offer this as someone who has it all figured out. She's candid about still learning, still working on her own boundaries, and still forgetting to drink water. That honesty is the heart of the episode: a reminder that self-care isn't about doing it perfectly, it's about noticing, adjusting, and starting with just one small thing.

If you're feeling tired, stretched thin, or like you've been pouring from an empty cup lately, consider this your permission slip to slow down and check in with yourself today.

💛 Take care of you, and take care of each other.

This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and does not provide therapeutic advice. All case examples referenced are de-identified. If you're seeking personal support, please reach out to a qualified mental health professional in your area.

When Parents Push Back: Working with Resistance in Play Therapy

You can have every handout, every strategy, every piece of psychoeducation ready to go, but if the parent sitting across from you is defended, exhausted, and quietly drowning in shame, none of it is going to land. So what do we actually do?

Ever sat across from a resistant parent and thought, "If I could just get through to them, everything would shift for this child"? You're not alone, and in this episode, Kylie unpacks one of the most common threads she hears from supervisees: how do we support children when we're not finding movement, insight, or collaboration with their parents?

Recording on a beautiful winter's morning on Quandamooka country (yes, you're getting the Brisbane weather update whether you asked for it or not), Kylie shares reflections on why so many parents show up to our clinics exhausted, overscheduled, and carrying an enormous amount of shame, and why the answer, again and again, comes back to connection.

In this episode, Kylie explores:

Why all roads lead back to relationship. You can have every tool in the world, but without connection, parents simply won't invest in giving your suggestions a go.

The contributing factors behind parental defensiveness: guilt and shame (one of the most acute forms of shame in the literature), overwhelm, unresolved childhood history, system pressure, and protection.

Why this generation of parents, hello geriatric millennials, are the first expected to re-parent themselves while re-parenting their children, often while working and running a household at the same time.

How the tenets of CCPT, empathy, congruence, and unconditional positive regard, apply just as much to the parents in our consults as they do to the children in our playroom.

What it means to "meet children of all ages," including the defended parent who was likely criticised as a child and learned that vulnerability wasn't safe. This is the parallel process: the way we work with children mirrors the way we work with parents.

Practical shifts you can make right away: leading with curiosity and wonder statements instead of "you should try," reflecting and validating feelings, sharing playroom wins as gentle invitations, and honouring where a parent sits in the cycle of change.

Why countertransference is therapeutic gold, and what your own frustration or irritation might actually be telling you about what's happening for that parent.

The "session three" marker Kylie watches for, why early drop-off can sometimes be a better outcome than losing a family twenty sessions in, and how to set collaborative expectations, and hold boundaries, from the very first consult.

This is gentle, person-centred reflection for anyone doing the tender work of supporting families. A reminder that we don't need to break through the wall. We just need to make the environment safe enough that the wall doesn't have to work so hard, and to give parents the same patience, empathy, and time we'd offer any child in the playroom.

Whether you're a seasoned play therapist, a student just starting out, or someone deeply passionate about working with children, you belong here.

Got a play therapy or CCPT question you'd love answered on the pod? Email Kylie. The link's in the show notes, and she'd genuinely love to hear from you.

Come join the free community circle to connect with other CCPT practitioners (link in show notes too).

If this episode resonated, please follow the podcast, share it with a colleague, or leave a short review. It helps others find the circle.

Until next time, look after yourselves and each other. Go well.

This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute therapeutic advice. All views are Kylie's own, and any case examples have been de-identified.

Episode 46: Reflecting Feelings (Back to Basics) + Listener Q&A on Post-COVID Babies

In this episode, Kylie returns to her Back to Basics series to unpack one of the most fundamental and often most challenging skills in child-centred play therapy: reflecting feelings. Coming live from the playroom (beanbag and all), she takes listeners through why this skill can feel so vulnerable for beginning play therapists, even though it's one of the most powerful tools we have for building connection and trust with the children we work with.

Kylie breaks down the clinical rationale behind reflecting feelings, explaining how it helps children bridge the gap between what they're feeling internally and the words to express it, something that's neurobiologically difficult for kids and often overlooked by the adults around them. She talks through why feeling seen is one of the most therapeutic experiences a person can have, and how reflecting feelings communicates empathy in a deeply Rogerian, person-centred way.

She also walks through the common mistakes practitioners make when reflecting feelings, including turning reflections into questions through tone and inflection, over-reflecting to the point of disconnection, inserting the therapist's own feelings rather than the child's, and reflecting with too much or too little intensity compared to what the child is actually showing. Kylie shares practical guidance on matching pacing, tone, and energy to the child in the room, and how this shifts as the therapeutic relationship develops over time, from co-regulation in early sessions through to the more natural, attuned reflections that come with experience.

In the second half of the episode, Kylie answers a thoughtful listener question from Catherine, an early childhood educator, who asks whether children born after COVID are still showing developmental effects of the pandemic, even though they weren't alive during lockdowns themselves. Kylie unpacks the research and clinical observations behind this, covering family stress transmission, parental depletion and reduced co-regulation capacity, perinatal anxiety and depression, the impact of a "reduced village" in many communities, and the role of sibling modeling within the family system. She makes the case for why supporting the whole family, not just the individual child, is essential when working with this generation.

In this episode:

• Why reflecting feelings is one of the hardest skills for beginning play therapists to master
• The clinical and neurobiological reasons reflecting feelings matters
• Common mistakes: questioning tone, over-reflecting, inserting your own feelings, and mismatched intensity
• How reflecting feelings evolves as the therapeutic relationship deepens
• Listener Q&A: are post-COVID babies still affected by pandemic-era family stress, even without lockdown exposure?
• The role of family stress transmission, maternal mental health, and community support in early childhood development

Got a question or topic you'd love Kylie to explore on the podcast? She'd love to hear from you. This space is for thoughtful, soulful conversations about play-based work, and it's built around the community that listens. Reach out, follow along, and remember, you belong here.